Christians tend to do one of two things when faced with a challenge to their faith: They either focus on the presenting symptom and fail to see that symptom is resting on deeper wider causes. Or they look to a general cause of such universality — typically sin — that it helps explain everything in general and nothing in particular.

….I’m going to argue that today’s sexual identity politics rests upon a number of assumptions about what it means to be human which are now deeply embedded in our culture, and these are: 1) that morality is a matter of emotional reactions or sentiments, 2) that those who can provoke these emotional reactions are those who determine our culture’s ethical norms, 3) that identity is now understood in psychological terms, 4) that sex is central to what it means to be free and fulfilled, 5) that oppression has come to be understood as a psychological category, and 6) that politics, technology, and the commercial entertainment industry all play key roles. That’s a tall order for a 45-minute presentation, but I’m going to attempt it. I promise you we will find a pathway from William Wordsworth to the wife of Kanye West — surely the very definition of a road to nowhere.